Heretofore pears have been fed to pear peeling and coring machines by orientors such as are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,144,121 and 3,797,639 issued to Laurence H. Smith. The latter patent disclosed an inclined ungated delivery chute in which some orientation takes place by differential friction. The chute feeds singulated pears to an orientation cup having spring biased side walls cooperating with a plunger mechanism 203 and a fingered belt 211 to assure pear orientation with the stem-end lowermost upon subsequent delivery to a transfer cut 204.